Former prison guard sentenced for giving contraband to inmate

STROUDSBURG — A former prison guard was sentenced Tuesday to a year's probation after pleading guilty to giving contraband (her cell phone) to a Monroe County Correctional Facility inmate in 2006.

STROUDSBURG — A former prison guard was sentenced Tuesday to a year's probation after pleading guilty to giving contraband (her cell phone) to a Monroe County Correctional Facility inmate in 2006.

Yvonne Lockard, 32, of East Stroudsburg, said she wouldn't have ended up before a judge had she not wandered from being a stickler for the rules as a corrections officer. Lockard and two other former prison guards (Roodney Ulysse, 35, of Tobyhanna, and Karen Stone, 37, of Stroudsburg) have pleaded no contest and guilty, respectively, to giving contraband (their cell phones) to inmates.

Fellow former corrections officer Dana Simpson, 35, of Tobyhanna, has pleaded no contest to having sexual contact with an inmate. Another former prison guard, Mark Gutshall, 39, of Blakeslee, pleaded guilty to that same charge and was sentenced Monday to three to 23 months in Monroe County Correctional Facility.

Two other former guards facing sexual misconduct charges are Frank Bell, 49, of Lehighton, and Richard Chimalza, 40, of East Stroudsburg. Ulysse, Stone, Simpson, Bell and Chimalza remain free on bail until their future sentencing or trial dates. An eighth defendant, former jail kitchen cook Misty Mate, 30, of Albrightsville, pleaded guilty in June to one count of providing illegal contraband to prisoners and was sentenced to a year's probation and fined $500.

Charges against all eight defendants resulted from an investigation after an inmate came forward to report misconduct.